What is Raw Food? What is Eating Raw?
Raw food is essentially food as nature intended. Eating unprocessed, natural foods is being rediscovered
as life giving, rejuvenating, healing and energy boosting. A raw diet will lean on nuts, fruits, grains, vegetables, pure oils,
and sprouted seeds. Just look at our menu to get an idea. Often, raw foods are
blended, grated, chopped, juiced, mixed and dehydrated in preparation. They do not see temperatures
above 105° F generally. This preserves all of natures intended goodness including
enzymes, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and energy.

Eating raw is simply consuming foods that are not heated. It is eating food as nature intended: naturally grown, naturally
harvested, unprocessed. Raw diets are catching on because the benefits are understood, although not touted
on your local news. And big business doesn't want us to know that the healthiest foods are essentially untouched,
that is, not processed under heat or with chemicals, additives and preservatives.

You don't have to be 100% raw to feel good about it. Experiment, read books, try recipes, learn from others.
Eat at Oasis Living Cuisine for starters!

Cacao is the seed of a fruit of an Amazonian tree that was brought to Central America during or
before the time of the Olmecs. Cacao beans were so revered by the Mayans and Aztecs that they used them as money!

Cacao beans contain no sugar and between 12% and 50% fat depending on variety and growth
conditions. Nature's First Law cacao beans are around 40% fat content (low compared to other nuts).
There is no evidence to implicate cacao bean consumption with obesity.

Raw cacao beans contain possibly the world's most
concentrated source of antioxidants found in any food. They also extremely high in magnesium
which has been found to be the most common deficient major mineral even following a balanced
diet. For those concerned with not getting enough iron it should be pleasing to know that one
small 28 gram serving of raw cacao beans gives 314% of the recommended daily allowance of
iron. And if that is not enough raw cacao beans have an antioxidant (ORAC) score of 95,500.
To put that into perspective, that is 14 times more flavonoids (antioxidants) than red wine and
21 times more than green tea.

Magnesium
Cacao is remarkably rich in magnesium. Cacao seems to be the #1 source of magnesium of any food.
This is likely the primary reason women crave chocolate during the menstrual period. Magnesium
balances brain chemistry, builds strong bones, and is associated with more happiness. Magnesium
is the most deficient major mineral on the Standard American Diet (SAD); over 80% of Americans
are chronically deficient in Magnesium!

Stimulant or Superfood?
Cacao contains subtle amounts of caffeine and theobromine. However, experiments have shown
that these stimulants are far different when consumed raw than cooked.

Consider the following: Experimental provings of chocolate by homeopaths indicate its stimulating
effect when cooked. One experiment conducted with a decoction of roasted ground cacao
beans in boiling water produced an excitement of the nervous system similar to that caused by
black coffee, an excited state of circulation, and an accelerated pulse. interestingly, when the
same decoction was made with raw, unroasted beans neither effect was noticeable, leading
the provers to conclude that the physiological changes were caused by aromatic substances
released during roasting.

MAO Inhibitors
Cacao seems to diminish appetite, probably due to its monoamine oxidase enzyme inhibitors
(MAO inhibitors) - these are different from digestive enzyme inhibitors found in most nuts and
seeds. These rare MAO inhibitors actually produce favorable results when consumed by allowing
more serotonin and other neurotransmitters to circulate in the brain. According to Dr. Gabriel
Cousens, MAO inhibitors facilitate youthening and rejuvenation.

Phenylethylamine (PEA)
Phenylethylamine (PEA) is found in chocolate. PEA is an adrenal-related chemical that is also
created within the brain and released when we are in love. This is one of the reasons why love
and chocolate have a deep correlation. PEA also plays a role in increasing focus and alertness.

Anandamide (The Bliss Chemical)
A neurotransmitter called anandamide, has been isolated in cacao. Anandamide is also
produced naturally in the brain. Anandamide is known as "The Bliss Chemical" because it is
released while we are feeling great. Cacao contains enzyme inhibitors that decrease our bodies'
ability to breakdown anandamide. This means that natural anandamide and/or cacao anandamide
may stick around longer, making us feel good longer, when we eat cacao.

Allergies?
A recent study showed that only one out of 500 people who thought they were allergic to
chocolate actually tested positive. Allergies to chocolate are quite rare. It is typically the case
that the person is in fact allergic to milk and dairy products.

Buying Cacao
Most cocoa powder and commercial chocolate is processed via the "Dutch method" meaning it
is subjected to scorching temperatures of up to 150° C with
the additional aid of solvents, thus destroying most of the nutrients and antioxidants. Be sure to
attain certified organic raw cacao in a powder, nib or whole bean form as the temperature will
have never been allowed to exceed 40° C thus allowing all the heat-sensitive vitamins, minerals
and antioxidants to remain intact.

Is cooked food good for us?By T.C. Fry

In nature all animals eat living foods as yielded up by Nature. Only humans cook their
foods and only humans suffer widespread sicknesses and ailments. Those humans who
eat mostly living foods are more alert, think clearer, sharper and more logically and
become more active. Best of all, live food eaters become virtually sickness-free!

Cooking is a process of food destruction from the moment heat is applied to the foodstuff.
Long before dry ashes results, food values are totally destroyed.

If you put your hand just for a moment into boiling water or on a hot stove, that should
forever persuade you just how destructive heat is. Food is usually subjected to these
destructive temperatures for perhaps half an hour or more. What was living substance
becomes totally dead very rapidly with exposure to heat!

Cooking renders food toxic! The toxicity of the deranged debris of cooking is confirmed
by the doubling and tripling of white blood cells after eating a cooked food meal. The white
blood cells are the first line of defense and are, collectively, popularly called "the immune system."

As confirmed by hundreds of researches cited in the prestigious National Academy of
Science's National Research Council's book, "Diet, Nutrition and Cancer," all cooking
quickly generates mutagens and carcinogens in foods.

Proteins begin coagulating and deaminating at temperatures commonly applied in cooking,
and are devoid of nutritive value.

Vitamins are rather quickly destroyed by cooking.

Minerals quickly lose their organic context and are returned to their native state as they occur in
soil, sea water and rocks, metals and so on. In such a state they are unusable and the body often
shunts them aside where they may combine with saturated fats and cholesterol in the circulatory
system, thus clogging it up with cement-like plaque.

Heated fats are especially damaging because they are altered to form acroleins, free radicals and
other mutagens and carcinogens as confirmed in, "Diet, Nutrition and Cancer."

Thus you can see that dead foods make dull, diseased and sooner dead people.

Why Raw Foods?

Raw foods are better quality, therefore you eat less to satisfy your nutritional needs.
The heat of cooking depletes vitamins, damages proteins and fats, and destroys enzymes which
benefit digestion. As your percentage of raw foods increases you feel satisfied and have more
energy on smaller meals because raw food has the best balance of water, nutrients, and fiber to
meet your body's needs.

Raw foods have more flavor than cooked foods so there is no need to add salt, sugar, spices,
or other condiments that can irritate your digestion system or over stimulate other organs.

Raw foods take very little preparation so you spend less time in the kitchen. Even a child of 5 or
6 can prepare most items for breakfast, lunch or dinner. This gives children a sense of self-esteem and
independence, not to mention the break it gives Mom or Dad.

When you are eating raw there's little chance of burns, unless you're in the middle of a forest fire or
out in the sun too long. Just think! No burns to tongues, the roof of your mouth, or fingers, and many fewer house fires.

Cleaning up after a raw meal is a snap. No baked-on oils or crusty messes. And any inedible parts go
directly to the compost pile.

Eating a diet of raw foods can reverse or stop the advance of many chronic diseases, including heart
disease and cancer. Remember, cooking creates free radicals, which are the major cause of cancer.
When you lower the number of free radicals your cells are bombarded with, you lower your risk of cancer.

A raw food diet can protect you from acute diseases such as colds, flu, measles, etc. Raw foods maintain
a healthy body and a healthy body will not become diseased.

As long as you combine raw food properly according to the rules of Natural Hygiene, you will soon reach
a level where you no longer suffer from heartburn, gas, indigestion or constipation.

It is environmentally sound. With humanity on a diet of raw foods, the food industry would close up
shop and take up organic gardening. This would save us enormous amounts of natural resources used
to produce power for these industries. Nuclear power would be clearly unnecessary. And think
of how many trees and oil reserves could be saved without the need for the paper and plastics used
in packaging our processed foods. There would also be less carbon dioxide released in to the
atmosphere when all the cooking stopped and more oxygen produced from all the new orchards and
gardens, thus helping to reverse the Greenhouse Effect.